Chapter 33 33

Chapter 33 33

I thought she might stay. I thought she might see through the molten gold of my eyes and recognize the boy who had promised to love her forever before he became the man who broke her.

Then, the moment shattered. She turned her back on me and walked toward the entrance of her house.

I watched the sway of her hips, the quiet determination in her stride. She looked like a queen of a fallen kingdom, and the sight of her leaving me again caused a pang of pure panic to ripple through my lupine frame. But then, my ears twitched. My instincts, honed by a decade of war and leadership, surged to the surface.

A sound. Low. Metallic. Entirely out of place in the natural rhythm of the woods.

It was the unmistakable click of a safety being disengaged, echoing from the treeline fifty yards away.

“Lyra, wait,” I huffed. To her, it was just a low, guttural whine—the sound of a dog begging for one more minute. She didn't look back. Her hand was already on the porch railing.

I didn't hesitate. I didn't care if I looked like a wild animal or a monster.

I lunged. I became a streak of black lightning heading toward the shadows of the oaks. My paws hit the dirt with silent, lethal force, covering the distance in seconds.

There, crouched behind a thicket of thorns and rot, was a man in tactical gear. He wasn't a local. He smelled of salt and city grime—one of Wyatt’s scouts. He had a long-range sedative rifle leveled, pointed directly at the porch. Directly at the center of her back.

“Not today, you piece of filth,” my wolf snarled.

I was on him before he could even register the change in the wind. I didn't bark; I didn't growl. I slammed into his chest with all six hundred pounds of my fury, pinning him to the damp forest floor.

The air left his lungs in a sickening, wet wheeze. I bared my teeth, the moonlight glinting off my fangs just inches from his jugular.

“Who sent you?” I growled. To his human ears, it was a terrifying, vibrating rumble that vibrated the very dirt beneath him.

The man’s eyes went wide, his pupils shrinking into pinpricks as his scent turned into the sour, pungent stench of pure terror. He knew what I was.

He wasn't looking at a forest wolf; he was looking at an Alpha in his prime, a predator who could end him before he could blink.

“Wyatt… he just wanted… to mark the house…” the man stammered, his voice a broken reed, trembling so hard I could feel it through my paws on his chest.

“Mark it for what?” I pressed, my muzzle grazing the skin of his throat. A single bead of blood welled where my tooth nipped him. “Answer me, or I’ll tear your vocal cords out and feed them to the crows.”

“The… the bastards!” the scout choked out, tears of terror streaming down his face. “He said the rogue woman has two pureblood bastards inside. He wants them brought in. The Council… they want the lineage secured. He told us to sedate the girl if she got in the way!”

The world went white. Pure, unadulterated rage flooded my veins, so hot I thought I might spontaneously shift. My sons. My Dante and my Bruno. Wyatt called them bastards.

He wanted to take them. He wanted to treat Lyra like an obstacle to be sedated and shoved aside.

“You tell Wyatt,” I rumbled, my voice dropping to a frequency that made the man’s ears bleed, “that if anyone from his pack so much as breathes the air near this garden again, I will hunt them down. I will find their families. I will burn their territories until there is nothing left but ash. Do you understand me, maggot?”

“Yes! Yes, please!”

I didn't kill him. Not because of mercy, but because I couldn't let the scent of death linger so close to Lyra’s home.

I clamped my jaws onto the barrel of his expensive rifle and snapped the reinforced steel like it was a dry twig. With a violent toss of my head, I threw the man through the brush, watching him scramble away on all fours, leaving a trail of urine and cowardice behind him.

I trotted back toward the edge of the clearing, my heart still hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I looked toward the house. The porch light was still on, but Lyra had disappeared inside.

I crept toward the window again, unable to stop myself. I needed to see them. I needed to see the boys I had unknowingly abandoned.

There they were. Dante was shifting in his sleep, his small hand clutching a wooden toy. Bruno was sprawled out beside him, his hair a mess of dark curls just like mine used to be.

My chest felt like it was being squeezed by a giant’s fist. They were beautiful. They were strong. And they were in so much danger.

If Wyatt knew they were purebloods, then the Council knew. And if the Council knew, they wouldn't stop until my sons were either under their thumb or buried. They wouldn't care about Lyra. To them, she was just the "defective" vessel who had carried the royal blood.

I stood there, rooted to the spot in the middle of her garden, watching as the door finally clicked shut and the lights on the ground floor went out.

The silence of the forest fell upon me once more, heavy and suffocating, but my mind was a chaotic whirlwind of strategies and soul-crushing remorse.

“We can't leave her alone, Silas. Wyatt will come for this town, and he will come for her,” whispered my wolf, now much more serious, the playfulness from earlier vanished into the grim reality of our situation.

I had to act. I had to use my position as Alpha to stop Wyatt's madness, even if it meant confronting my own father and the Council in a war that would tear the northern territories apart. I had spent years being the "perfect" leader, the obedient son. No more.

But first, I needed to secure the perimeter of that house. I needed to become her shadow. I would protect her and my sons from the dark, and I would do it without her ever realizing that her “little wolf” was actually the man she hated most in the world.

The metallic tang of blood and the scent of ozone from the shattered rifle hung heavy in my muzzle. I didn’t kill the scout—not because my wolf lacked the hunger, but because the silence of this sanctuary was more precious than his life.